Database

Orchestrate API For Rapid Apps With Multiple NoSQL

By Adrian Bridgwater, February 05, 2014

Commercial version also backed up by continued free developer trial

Orchestrate has launched a commercially supported version of its NoSQL-centric API. Still available as a free developer trial, Orchestrate.io provides a RESTful API service eliminating the need for users to operate their own databases in production.

Developers who want access to a what we might call a "robust data architecture" here will also find full text search functionality as well as graphs, activity feeds, plus time-ordered event and key-value queries.

So the justification for this product then is that (according to Orchestrate) with the proliferation of NoSQL databases, a typical application will use as many as five databases in production to power features such as (and this is just an example) search, finding friends, recommendations, and storing information generated by sensors and connected devices.

"The explosion of the database market has caused confusion for developers and added complexity to apps. At the same time, individual databases themselves don't differentiate the product — user experience does. No app has ever come out on top because of how well they ran a database. Orchestrate simplifies multi-database management and frees developers to focus on building better products faster and without the headaches," said Antony Falco, CEO and cofounder of Orchestrate.

With many development shops using multiple database types (often called polyglot persistence) in multiple locations, Orchestrate seeks to nestle into a niche here to free developers from operational (and financial) constraints.

Orchestrate says that programmers will be able to code new features more quickly, combine data previously isolated in silos to create better features, and allocate more resources to improving end user experience and driving growth.

Orchestrate features include ad hoc search queries with Lucene; event and time-ordered storage for activity feeds and sensor data; data export at will — no lock-in; a single, simple interface — JSON data in/out; it is designed to complement existing databases and MBaaS services; plus also client libraries for Java, Node.js, and Go, with Ruby, Python, .NET, and other common languages coming soon.

"Polyglot persistence has enabled developers to make use of multiple architectures, data formats, and consistency models, but also poses a potential headache to database and application administrators who have to support multiple databases and the sometimes fragile dependencies between them," commented Matt Aslett, research director, data management and analytics, 451 Research. "We see the potential for interest in Orchestrate.io's API platform as enterprises look to alleviate the complexity of managing multiple databases that support modern distributed composite applications."

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